


Time and Again

by MyOwnSuperintendent



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-16 00:10:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12331617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyOwnSuperintendent/pseuds/MyOwnSuperintendent
Summary: 1973 and 2010--two boys look out for their younger sisters.





	Time and Again

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own The X-Files or anything related to it. Hope you enjoy!

_1973_

The children are playing in the yard.  It’s a cool November day, and most of the leaves have already fallen.  Samantha is trying to collect them, but they keep blowing off in the wind.  A particularly bright red leaf just escapes as she tries to grasp it, and she stamps her foot in frustration.

“What’s wrong?”  Fox is standing beside her, looking on as she reaches for another leaf.

That one darts away too.  “They keep blowing away,” she says, angrily.

“What do you want them for, anyway?” he asks. 

“We have a project,” Samantha says.  “In my class.  We’re supposed to get as many different kinds of leaves as we can and glue them in our notebook.  Whoever has the most different ones gets a prize.”

“Is it a good prize?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” she says.  “Ice cream.  So I want to win.”  They share an understanding grin.  “But the stupid leaves keep blowing away.”

“Here,” he says.  “I’ll help you get them.  And I’ll put them in my pockets when we’ve caught them, so they don’t blow away again.”

“Okay,” she says.  “Thanks.”  They chase after the leaves, both of them now; he’s a faster runner than she is, quicker to catch them.  They collect handfuls to sort, leaves from the different trees, leaves in all colors.

Teena stands on the back steps, watching them; she turns as she hears Bill approaching.  He watches the children for a moment too.  “What are they doing?”

“Collecting leaves,” she says.  “Samantha has a project.  Fox is helping her.”  He nods at that, so peacefully, so placidly.  She could slap him.  “You’re not going to do this,” she says, keeping her voice quiet, because the children aren’t far away.  “You’re not.  You can’t be.”

“I don’t have a choice,” he says.  He could be talking about what they’re going to have for dinner, for all it affects his voice.

“Of course you have a choice,” she says.  “How can you say that?  Just because you want to give in and…and…”  She struggles for the words.  “Just look at them,” she says finally.  Maybe that will get through to him, the way the two children are smiling now, Fox helping Samantha collect leaves.  If he doesn’t understand now, she doesn’t know how she can make him.

“I am looking,” he says, and she knows it’s not enough, that somewhere back there they started down a path there’s no turning back from. 

That doesn’t mean she has to agree to it.  “I can’t believe you’re doing this to us.”  It doesn’t express the half of what she’d like to say.

“I’m not the only one,” he says, “who’s gotten mixed up in this.”  His eyes are still on Fox.

She can’t speak, can’t answer that.  But when he looks at his watch and takes a step towards the children—it’s almost time for lunch—she finds her voice.  “Stop,” she says.  “Let them finish.”

Bill listens to that, at least.  They both stand there and watch until the children have all the leaves they can carry and come running towards the house, Samantha grinning from ear to ear.

 

_2010_

The children are playing in the yard.  Amy has already climbed into the big tree, pulling herself from branch to branch.  William’s just started up too, but he stops when he catches sight of Laura, still standing at the bottom, looking distinctly dubious.  “You want to climb up with me and Amy, Laura?”  Laura shrugs.  “You’re not sure?”

“It’s so high,” she says.  At four, the girls are still small, particularly compared to their brother, and even more so compared to the tree.

William nods.  “It is pretty high,” he says.  “It’s  pretty easy to climb, though.  And it’s fun.”

“I might fall,” she says, her voice quiet. 

“No, you won’t,” William says.  “But if you want to try it, you can go first, and I’ll go right behind you.  And if you do fall, I can catch you.  But you won’t fall.”

Laura looks at him for a moment, and then she squares her small shoulders and says, “Okay.”  She starts up, her brown braids swinging behind her, and William follows her closely.

Scully’s come out of the house just in time to witness this last scene, but Mulder’s there already, sitting on the steps and watching the children.  She takes a seat next to him, looking at his face.  His expression is part contentment and part melancholy, and she puts an arm around his shoulders, gently, companionably.  She thinks she knows what’s on his mind.

He doesn’t say much, but she didn’t really need the words, anyway.  “They remind me, sometimes.  Of when I was growing up…”

“Well, that’s not the strangest thing in the world,” Scully says.  “He’s a lot like you, you know.”  William looks the most like her of the three children—Amy’s more of a mixture, and Laura looks exactly like Mulder, if Mulder were a four-year-old girl—but there’s so much of his dad in his personality: his inquisitiveness, his determination, his kindness.  And that kindness is so often on display when he’s with his sisters.  They don’t get along perfectly every minute, of course, but when the twins were born, William seemed to have decided that it was his job to help take care of them.  Moments like the one they’ve just seen aren’t uncommon with him.

 Mulder half smiles at her.  “Thanks.  I don’t know that I was ever as good with Samantha as he is with them, to be honest.”

She tightens her arm around him.  “Mulder, I don’t think there’s anyone who knows you,” she says, “who wouldn’t say that you were a good brother.”

He kisses her at that, and they sit quietly for a minute or two, nestled against each other.  “It’s not a bad thing,” he says, eventually.  “Being reminded, I mean.  It’s just…”  He trails off, thinking, and finally shrugs.  “It’s just a thing.”

“I know,” she says.  Perhaps she doesn’t know this exact feeling, but she thinks she knows enough; they’ve both had their share of loss, and they understand how that’s shaped them, the spaces they can fill for each other and the spaces they can only respect.  They both know the way that sorrow can sometimes coexist with happiness like this, with a beautiful autumn day and all of them together, the two of them and their three miraculous children, with the life they’ve made against all odds. 

“I wonder if she would have had a family,” Mulder muses, and Scully can’t answer that, of course.  In Mulder’s memories, Samantha is arrested at eight; he can’t know who she might have been some day, what she might have thought or done.  When she lives on, it is in scenes like this.

Scully doesn’t say anything, but it doesn’t seem like she needs to.  Mulder shakes his head and smiles, then presses his cheek against hers.  “Look,” he says, pointing.  The children are all up in the tree now, huddled together in a nook among the branches.  She can hear them laughing.


End file.
